NYT Crossword Answers Archive: Every Past Puzzle by Date

About This NYT Crossword Answers Archive

This archive lists every NYT Crossword since November 13, 2025, built from the official puzzle data. Each row gives the date, the day of the week, the grid size and the constructor, plus the title on Sundays. A new puzzle is added every day.

We publish answers, not clues. Each clue is its constructor's own writing, so the archive gives you the solved grid and every answer by number, which is enough to check a finished puzzle or rescue an unfinished one. Puzzles from August 1, 2026 on link to their own page with the full answer list, the theme entries and the day's question-mark answers.

The ticket at the top holds yesterday's puzzle. For the newest one, see today's NYT Crossword answers, which switch to the next puzzle as soon as it's released the evening before.

How to Find a Past NYT Crossword

• By date. Use the month links above the list and open the month you need. The two most recent are open already.
• By answer. Type a word in the search box. It checks every Across and Down answer in the archive, highlights each puzzle that used it, and tells you the dates.
• By constructor or title. Every row names the constructor, and Sunday rows show the title, so you can scan the list or use your browser's find for a name.
• Yesterday. The ticket at the top is always the previous day's puzzle.

Remember that NYT Crosswords come out the evening before their date: 10 p.m. Eastern for Tuesday to Saturday puzzles, 6 p.m. for Sunday and Monday. A puzzle you solved late at night belongs to the next day's date.

NYT Crossword Records From the Past Year

Mostly, the extremes follow the week's pattern. Saturday themeless grids use fewer, longer answers, so they hold both the fewest-answers record and the most open grid, while Sunday's oversized puzzles hold the records for size and length. The odd one out is February 14, 2026: a Saturday with 47 black squares, the most of any 15×15 grid in the archive.

How Often NYT Crossword Answers Repeat

Nearly half of all NYT Crossword answers have appeared earlier in the same year. The 364 puzzles from November 13, 2025 to November 11, 2026 contain 30,296 answers but 16,644 different words, so 13,652 answers (45%) were repeats.

That's far more repetition than in the Mini (22%) or the Midi (38%), because a 15×15 grid needs dozens of short connecting words. ERA alone appeared 33 times; ATE and SET 26 times each.

Yet the vocabulary is still wide. 69% of the different answers were used only once all year. The repeats are crossword glue; the one-offs are the theme entries and fresh fill that make each puzzle distinct.

The Rebus Calendar

Seventeen puzzles in the archive put more than one letter in a single square. Here is what went into those squares.

Eight of the seventeen fell on a Thursday, the NYT Crossword's traditional trick day, and seven on a Sunday.

Recent Sunday NYT Crossword Titles

Only Sunday puzzles have titles, and every Sunday in the archive has one. These are the ten most recent before November 12, 2026; the full set is in the list above, next to each Sunday's constructor.

A Sunday title almost always describes what the long theme answers share, so it's the best hint you'll get before you start. The per-day pages from August 2026 on reveal those theme answers behind a button.

Who Wrote the Past Year's Puzzles

The NYT Crossword is the most open of the three NYT crosswords: 234 different constructors appear in this archive. For 141 of them, it was their only puzzle of the year; just 12 had five or more.

Collaboration is common, too. 67 puzzles were made by two or more constructors working together. Will Shortz is credited as editor on every puzzle.

The most frequent byline was John Kugelman, with 12 puzzles. Zhou Zhang and Rafael Musa followed with nine each, then Adam Wagner, Adrian Johnson, Jeff Chen and Rebecca Goldstein with seven.

Every row in the list names the constructor, and Sunday rows add the title, so the archive doubles as a record of who wrote what.

Using Past NYT Crosswords to Improve

1. Learn the glue words. The "most common answers" chart above is a ready-made list of crosswordese. ERA, ATE, SET, ERR and ETA turn up every few days.
2. Replay a rebus Thursday. Pick a date from the rebus calendar and solve it with the per-day page's answers beside you, so you see how the trick squares work.
3. Practise themeless puzzles. Friday and Saturday grids have fewer, longer answers and the most wordplay. Working through a few past ones is the best training for late-week solving.
4. Check an answer you doubt. If an answer looks wrong to you, search it here. Seeing it in earlier grids is often enough to trust it.

How This NYT Crossword Archive Is Built

Every puzzle here comes from NYT's own puzzle files. A full year was collected date by date from the official source, and since then our pipeline adds each new puzzle automatically when it's released the evening before its date.

We keep the grid and the answers, but not the clue text. Before a puzzle is added, every answer's squares must be filled and the date must match. Unusual puzzles are handled rather than dropped: the September 24, 2026 grid, with two squares meant to stay empty, is in the archive with those squares shown as blanks.

There are no gaps: every day from November 13, 2025 on is present.

NYT Crossword Archive FAQ